Cafe’s storied history outlined, preserved

Written by Tunica Times
Friday, 09 May 2014 18:50

The Hollywood Café, both at its current site and its original location in Hollywood, Miss., earned fame as a Delta dining institution but has also shared in the area’s musical history. Pianist Muriel Wilkins performed at the restaurant for years, and she and the Hollywood were immortalized in the Marc Cohn hit song, “Walking in Memphis.” Legendary bluesman Son House also performed at this site when the building housed the commissary of the Frank Harbert plantation, where House once resided.

The Hollywood Café had neither live music nor a kitchen when Bard Selden opened the business as a bar in the summer of 1969. But over the years the café began to offer dinnertime music as the menu expanded to steak, catfish and the Hollywood’s signature dish, fried dill pickles (a specialty of Bard’s brother, Tait Selden).